Few recent first-person shooter games have been successful in capturing the nostalgia of the 1990s—those happy times spent playing Doom, Duke Nukem, Blood, and similar games. It was a very unique moment to be alive for PC gamers during the decade that gave us Half-Life, Quake, and, uh, Extreme Paintbrawl. By virtue, it has some very tough acts to follow if a developer makes the claim that they are bringing back the most iconic period of shooters. One new first-person shooter, however, is currently playable via a free demo on Steam and may rank with games like Dusk and Prodeus in terms of being an accurate (and incredibly entertaining) homage to the ’90s.
In Bloodhound, you play the ‘Keeper of the Gates,’ who is tasked with defending the gates of Hell from the invading Cult of Astaroth. It’s kind of like Doom inverted – instead of killing everything in Hell, your job is to kill everything that’s trying to kill everything in Hell.
Like Monolith’s Blood, the locations in Bloodhound take inspiration from cult horror and slasher movies, with enemies based on demon worshippers and evil priests. There are a lot of weapons, a lot of upgrades, and an absolute reservoir of blood. Also taking some cues from TimeSplitters, Bloodhound looks incredibly fast-paced, with crisp 3D visuals and a very Free Radical-esque art style.
In another homage to the classic ‘90s shareware model, the opening episode of Bloodhound, ‘First Day In Hell,’ will be available completely free, once it launches on March 30. You can head over to Steam and wishlist Bloodhound right now.
Alternatively, you might want to try some great old games that will still run on your PC in 2023, or maybe some of the best zombie games, if you miss obliterating shotgun guys and chaingunners in the OG Doom.